Is the tech press needed anymore? (how Apple iPhone apps take off now)
Robert Scoble November 20, 2010
Datapoint one: John Gruber is noting that Android doesn't have very many of the industry's best apps.
Datapoint two. Starbucks CIO says that he's forced to use HTML 5 to support Apple iOS users, because they represent the majority of folks using mobile devices in their stores.
Datapoint three. SlideRocket is forced into HTML5 land (they used to be all Flash) because of pressure from iOS users.
Datapoint four. Instagram got 100,000 users in less than a week (now rumors are that they've gotten more than a million users in first month).
Datapoint five. Mobile app developer HighFive Labs (they've built 15 apps, including Mario Batali Cooks) tells me they are staying iPhone only for a while.
Datapoint six. Just yesterday Sam Feuer, CEO of MindSmack, told me his app, FastMall, was just put to the top of Apple's iTunes store and is getting overwhelming demand. When I interviewed him a few weeks ago he told me he already had 250,000 downloads just because he was included in the featured list on the store.
I'm featuring FastMall's video on this post (watch the video of its CEO in its New York headquarters), because he is at the top of the iTunes Shopping recommendations and because his app will help you get around shopping malls. I've used it a few times already to find out where to park nearest stores I need to visit and also to know how to find the store I need inside a mall.
Add into this lots of other anecdotes from companies like Zagat (they say iPhones are outselling all other platforms), Sephora (its webmaster told me that 80% of all mobile app users who come into their stores are using iOS devices), eBay (its mobile chief told me most of the mobile commerce done is on iOS devices), OpenTable (its mobile chief told me most of the restaurant reservations it's seeing done on mobile devices are being made on iOS devices), AngryBirds (charges for app on iPhone, but giving it away on Android), and PayPal (investing heavily in apps to "bump" money from person-to-person). I could keep going, but there's somethings going on here which are worth talking about.
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